Grounded
in Education and Experience:
Mendocino Coast Master Gardeners
Story
by K. Andarin Arvola
The heady scent of rhododendrons hangs in the air as Kristina Van
Wert and I talk at the Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens just south
of Fort Bragg. Van Wert is the Mendocino Coast Master Gardener coordinator
and has worked as a plant recorder and gardener at the Botanical Gardens
for ten years.
Van Wert is also a Master Gardener and has been since 2007. This year’s
class has twenty students, not only from the coast but inland as well. Backgrounds
are as varied as experience. While most people have a fair amount of experience
in the garden, some do not. We’re exploring what it takes to become a Master
Gardener.
According to information from the University of California Cooperative Extension,
the Master Gardener Program (MGP) was first started in King and Pierce counties
in Washington state in 1972 as a tool to help meet the research and educational
needs of home gardeners. Since then the MGP has been implemented in over forty-five
states and in four Canadian provinces. Nationally, over seventeen thousand new
Master Gardeners are certified each year.
The California Master Gardener Program was first initiated in 1980 in Sacramento.
The program is not so much for personal enrichment, although it certainly is
that, but to provide expert education for state, county and local communities.
To become a Master Gardener requires a commitment of time and energy, not only
initially with four months and fifty hours of training of once-a-week classes
but also ongoing volunteering hours. In the first year they volunteer fifty hours
and twenty-five thereafter with twelve hours of continuing education required
each year.
Van Wert stresses that the information in the classes is fact-driven. “This
is not what Aunt Tilda says about gardening but what the scientific community
through University of California at Berkeley and Davis has proven with years
of research.”
As with any new endeavor, there are the basics to cover, such as soil. What is
soil? How does one test the soil? How do you amend it for growing, say vegetables
or ornamentals? It’s a huge subject. From resources through U.C. Davis,
newly-minted Master Gardeners have the tools to find the answers to questions
about fertilizers, irrigation, weeds, diseases, insects and other pests, fruit
and landscape trees, vegetables, xeriscaping, and more.
I sat in on a class in early March on propagation taught by naturalist, propagation
supervisor and gardener Mario Abreu who works at the Botanical Gardens. I found
myself taking pages of notes and when we went out to the propagation house I
was fascinated with the many young plants that were already started. Abreu demonstrated
some of the different techniques we’d been talking about in class.
Volunteer projects
The Master Gardeners at the Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens volunteer
in many ways. They staff information tables at local Farmers’ Markets,
develop displays for the Mendocino County Fair, staff information
sites at the Botanical Gardens, conduct outreach educational programs
in Mendocino Coast schools, organize presentations to local public
groups, lead docent tours at the Botanical Gardens, develop educational
programs, and assist with nursery questions.
One volunteer outreach project is to (wo)man a booth at the Fort
Bragg Farmers’ Market to answer questions about gardening, such as
plant varieties and pest control. Last year Van Wert and others were
there every first and third weeks with handouts and information. “I
learned a lot, and it’s fun,” says Van Wert. “When
people ask questions, I learn, too. People are supplementing what food
they buy by learning to grow their own.” They’d like someone
to staff the Mendocino Farmers’ Market (held on Fridays) even
if it’s only once a month Van Wert tells me. “We can expand
the days if we have more Master Gardeners,” she says.
Learning takes on a more personal aspect when it’s your own garden.
I’ve learned that tomatoes are a waste of space where I live—tomatoes
need heat and I’m too close to the coast so I grow many other
vegetables that thrive. I’ve got the deer problem licked with
fencing but last year a new problem flew over the fence—turkeys!
This year my solution will be to net the garden and put in a couple
of gates. That’s what Van Wert suggests since she has had problems
with sparrows eating her lettuce starts.
Another fun and creative special event was a garden feature exhibit
at the Boonville [Mendocino County] Fair and Apple Show. These Master
Gardeners are good! In 2008 a group of coastal Master Gardeners won
First Place and Best of Show for their design. In 2009 a Ukiah Master
Gardener won.
Due to start at the end of April are walk-in hours for gardening questions
Friday through Mondays in the library at the south end of the Botanical
Gardens parking lot. This service lasts until October.
The Botanical Gardens also hosts a workshop series that is open to
the public for a nominal fee. It was started to provide ongoing educational
opportunities for Master Gardeners as well as education for the general
public. Some are taught by Master Gardeners and subjects are varied.
Learning to correctly care for and sharpen gardening tools, how to
prune fruit trees, start a vegetable garden, care for rhododendrons,
and test soil are but a few of the subjects covered.
Not everyone wants to meet the public or teach a class so there are
volunteer projects such as putting together a Master Gardener newsletter.
A future project is to become even more involved with local schools
in the area. Most of our schools do have a garden, and classes that
provide education, with hands-on learning. The Master Gardeners would
provide education-oriented assistance, not labor, says Van Wert.
Gardeners, some master, some not-yet
I spoke with several individuals with varied backgrounds in life and
in the garden. Enthusiastic about the Master Gardener Program and
the education they’ve received, and keen to volunteer their
services, they were delightful to talk with.
A new life
Joel Schwartz, sixty-five years old, lived in Santa Monica for thirty-five
years. As with many individuals who now live here, he’d been
coming to the coast on vacations since the late 1960s.
“I’m a writer of a novel, plays, memoirs and travel articles. I
figured that if I ever made it big I’d retire to the coast. I didn’t
make it big but did retire here.”
Schwartz also worked with homeless teenagers in Hollywood to give them
life skills so they wouldn’t have to live on the streets. Several
of the programs he started are still flourishing today.
“I’m not a gardener. I never had more than a few potted plants
on my deck. But the woman who owned the house we bought about a mile up Albion
Ridge Road (in Albion) was quite a gardener. The whole acre was overgrown and
the first year we just watched the garden, noticed when things bloomed, what
the plants looked like and I read volumes of books on gardening. I was very
excited to learn. The second and third years I cut back a few things.”
Schwartz wanted more basic and structured information so when he heard
about the Master Gardener Program it seemed tailor-made as an A-to-Z
guide.
“What I liked was they told us we didn’t have to memorize the information.
It’s the first class I’ve ever taken where you weren’t told
to memorize everything. You’re given all the resources to know how to
find the information you need,” he says. “The program is two hundred
dollars for the whole session and I know I’ve gotten paid back in the
books we’ve received.
“It’s opened up a new world. It’s a whole new life. I love
digging in the dirt. I have a little plot of land to attend to. It’s
been such a gift. I can take all the information and apply it to my vegetable
garden. I’m going to start everything from seed,” he says with
enthusiasm.
“Plus, I want to work with teenagers and teach them the things I’ve
learned, probably through the Fort Bragg school system.”
Sixty-seven years of gardening
“My grandfather started me gardening with vegetables and flowers
to get me out of the house,” says Nona Carpenter. “I was
five, so I’ve been a gardener for sixty-seven years.”
Besides an early start, Carpenter worked at the now closed Mill Creek
Nursery in Talmage (near Ukiah) for nineteen years. One of the unique
services they provided, because they had the facilities, was to start
people’s seeds. People would bring favorite seeds, such as peppers
and tomatoes, to start in January to get plants they couldn’t
find elsewhere.
Often these were heritage varieties which Carpenter is still interested
in and saving to this day. One such heritage vegetable is the sweet
Italian red onion.
Her own garden is on three acres, much of it in raised beds, she says.
She’s been a member of the Ukiah Garden Club since 1989. “We
grow plants that do well here to give away or to sell in mid-April
at a plant sale that raises funds for scholarships to the Mendocino
College in a degree related to agriculture,” Carpenter shares. “We’re
also interested in rainwater and grey water conservation.”
Carpenter took the Master Gardener class to be able to more fully answer
the questions people call her with, sometimes as early as seven in
the morning! “I want to continue to learn, there’s always
more to learn, and to pass it on to interested people, plus make gardening
fun.”
Gardening delight
Local Fort Bragg resident Pam Rivette has gardened her whole life.
A full-time job precluded her involvement in the Master Gardener
Program but she was aware of it. “The Master Gardeners are
very big in Sacramento where I lived because the University of California
at Davis is close by,” she says.
She moved to the coast in the summer of 2003 and retired in 2006.
Rivette was thrilled to see an advertisement in the local paper about
the MGP class at the Botanical Gardens in 2007. After completing
the training Rivette remembers,
“we all laughed that we came out of the training
realizing how much we didn’t know about gardening. Everyone in
class and everyone I’ve worked with since has been a delight.
What I’m really amazed about are the diverse backgrounds of the
people. They’re from all over the U.S. and the world and are
involved in the program and seeking help.
“In every volunteer project I have learned something. I’m impressed
with all the phenomenal resources and experts from U.C. at Davis. You can find
out anything. And as existing Master Gardeners we can sit in on any current
classes.
“Some of the projects I’ve been involved in have been at the Farmers’ Market
in Fort Bragg and in the library at the Botanical Gardens. People have brought
the most intriguing questions and puzzles. It’s been varied and extremely
interesting; the people are either engaged or wanted to be engaged in gardening.
In fact, a woman came into the library with questions and when we got talking
she had grown up a street over from where I had grown up in Sacramento. That
was fun.”
The final exam was a great learning tool, Rivette shares. “Since
it’s an open book test we worked at home but several of us got
together at the Botanical Gardens and had lengthy and challenging debates
among ourselves about what the answer should be.”
Our beautiful rhododendrons inspire many people who then want advice
on picking out and growing one in their yard in a Southwest desert
environment. “It’s just not going to survive,” she
says with amusement.
One of the re-occurring themes in this area is the interest people
have in growing their own food. There is a resurgence in the individual
home garden. A lot of people are starting a vegetable garden for the
first time. Rivette and I talk about why that may be. We toss around
the ideas of people wanting organic food, supplementing their income
by selling food at the Farmers’ Markets (in Fort Bragg and Mendocino),
growing their own veggies to cut down on buying them, the current economy,
the satisfaction of growing their own vegetables, and the exercise
gardening requires.
“My impression is that the old families on the coast have always had
a garden and never thought not to have a garden. Maybe it’s a small town
thing?” Rivette muses. “Yet, my family, even in Sacramento, always
had a garden as did our neighbors, even if we had a small yard.
“My vegetable garden has given me a real different perspective on moles,
voles, gophers and other critters, and how much our activities bait them to
come into our gardens by turning the soil and planting things they love to
eat.”
She’s learned some good methods of exclusion because “I’m
not interested in trapping, killing and poisoning. They’re just
trying to make a living. I like having a garden that can tolerate what
already lives here in the forest—especially now that I have deer
fencing around a part of that forest!”
I, too, remember my family having a large garden. We canned vegetables,
obtained fruit and tuna and salmon to can as well. This was a time,
we both agree, when there was little variety in the winter; no mangos
were shipped in from Chile.
“I have a confidence about gardening now, not just vegetables but ornamentals
as well,” Rivette states. “And I’m better at knowing my limitations
about growing certain plants. I may be like the people in the Southwest who
want to grow a rhodie. I may get the equivalent to grow. But do I want to spend
all the effort and time? Or do I want to forgo some of the challenges of a
more labor-intensive garden and just enjoy one that more or less takes care
of itself? I do want a garden that I can spend more time enjoying rather than
being a slave to it.”
Having completed the Master Gardener Program, Rivette says that “with
my own garden my ability to recognize problems in the garden has been
definitely expanded. For instance, knowing that I have to feed the
soil, how and with what. I now have lots of good information about
pruning fruit trees. When I run across a problem I have the resources
to figure out what the answer is,” she concludes.
At the end of April, twenty new Master Gardeners will graduate just
in time to answer all your questions. Find them at the Farmers’ Markets
throughout the county. Go to the Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens
and ask away! That’s what they’ve spent time and effort
to learn—how to be a resource for the enjoyment and pleasure
of gardening be it ornamental or vegetables.
Resources and events:
Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens
18220 North Highway 1
Fort Bragg, CA 95437
Tel.: (707) 964-4352
Fax: (707) 964-3114
info@gardenbythesea.org
Master Gardener Earth Day Open House
Saturday, April 24 and Sunday, April 25
Get those spring garden questions answered! Attend the season opening
of walk-in hours for 2010 at the Botanical Gardens’ library .
Ask a Master Gardener your garden questions through the phone hotline,
(707) 964-4352 extension 27, or e-mail the hotline at mastergardener@gardenbythesea.org
Ukiah Garden
Club Scholarship Plant Sale
April 17–18, 8:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.
9400 West Redwood Valley Road
Redwood Valley, CA
(707) 485-8191
Information on the Internet:
http://camastergardeners.ucdavis.edu/index.cfm
http://www.mastergardeners.org
http://cemendocino.ucdavis.edu/Master_Gardener578/
Interested in obtaining the California
Master Gardener Handbook? It
is an invaluable reference tool for retail nursery staff, horticultural
advisors, and all California gardeners.
Chapters cover
• soil, fertilizer, and water management
• plant propagation
• plant physiology
• weeds and pests
• home vegetable gardening
• specific garden crops including grapes,berries,temperate fruits and
nuts,citrus, and avocados.
Product Code: 3382
Language: English
ISBN: ISBN 1-879906-54-6
Date: 2002 Length: 702 pp. Price: $ 35.00 /Each
Order this and other gardening publications at http://anrcatalog.ucdavis.edu/ |